Free: you haven't answered a question I would very much like answered.

(28-11-2014 12:06 PM)cjlr Wrote: If personal experience and eyewitness testimony count as evidence for alien craft, then they count as evidence for alien abduction. They count as evidence for ghosts. They count as evidence for angels and angelic visitation. They count as evidence for bigfoot and chupacabra. They count as evidence for psychic channeling and dowsing. They count as evidence for telepathy.

(28-11-2014 01:41 PM)cjlr Wrote: Free: you haven't answered a question I would very much like answered.

(28-11-2014 12:06 PM)cjlr Wrote: If personal experience and eyewitness testimony count as evidence for alien craft, then they count as evidence for alien abduction. They count as evidence for ghosts. They count as evidence for angels and angelic visitation. They count as evidence for bigfoot and chupacabra. They count as evidence for psychic channeling and dowsing. They count as evidence for telepathy.

Do you find those other sets of evidence compelling?

Why or why not?

All those things (except the alien craft) would depend on various factors, but none of those things have the kind of evidence the O'Hare case actually has.

If, for example, 12 people seen what appeared to be Bigfoot, but could not capture it, it may mean that Bigfoot exists, or it could mean that somebody got dressed up as BigFoot to fool them. The same thing can be applied to ghosts, angels, etc. That stuff is easily hoaxed and/or easily mistaken.

But hoaxing what appears to be a craft 1600 feet up in the sky in front of more than a dozen witnesses who are all very experienced with aircraft is an entirely different ballgame.

And hoaxing is why I left a margin of error of 10%. It is possible, but it would be exceptionally difficult, and if it was a hoax I would laugh my ass off.

(28-11-2014 12:31 PM)Full Circle Wrote: Read the transcript more closely, the person Sue from United Airlines is passing along info from a pilot. Then the controller passes that info on. It does NOT originate from the tower.

The point of that transcript is to demonstrate that the FAA did indeed have recordings concerning the UFO, contrary to their denial of it.

Edited to clarify that the "Sue" transcript is not the same.

But you’re using it in a manner that seems disengenous to support your stance.

The traffic controller HAD to pass the information along, he/she wasn’t collaborating it. See the difference?

Do you have a different transcript than I’m seeing? Post a link to yours so I can read it.

“I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man’s reasoning powers are not above the monkey’s.”~Mark Twain
“Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.”~ Ambrose Bierce

(28-11-2014 09:09 AM)Free Wrote: If I had to place a probability scale on whether or not 12 experienced eyewitnesses- who all described the exact same thing as being a metallic disc shaped object hovering 1600 feet above a hanger which accelerated through the clouds into space- it would be 90%.

To me, it's not a question of it not being a vehicle of some sort. According to 12 witnesses, it most definitely was. So that issue is really a 90% non-issue. It does not mean it is conclusive, but damn near it and close enough to certainly be exceptionally credible.

The reason my overall assessment is 70% is because we do not know for certainty who was piloting the craft; man, or non human.

Frankly, you baffle me. How you can go from .01% to 70% based only on witness testimony about what people think they saw only leads me to believe that you have incredibly low standards of evidence and/or are very gullible. Why you don't believe in gods, ghosts, and other things is a mystery because the evidence you use for aliens visiting earth is no different.

Quote:Like I keep saying, we do not need a little green man to apply some reason here.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Quote:All I am looking for is the best possible explanation,

why is it unacceptable that the best answer we have right now is "don't know"?

Quote:and considering the fact that UFOs definitely exist and many of the ones that displayed characteristics similar to the O'Hare incident were classified as "unknown" by leading government officials who have the capability to identify virtually all known aircraft,

unidentified flying objects exist? sure, but you are identifying them without any justification that I can see. Government officials may be theoretically have the ability to identify "virtually all" known aircraft but they may not have info on experimental craft or activities (military or private), may not have up to date records, and may be lying about what they do know. The odds that your O'Hare incident was some kind of military experiment (of a vehicle or just a psychological experiment on civilians) is very low but would still have to outweigh the odds that it was aliens. We KNOW the military has tested experimental craft and we KNOW that they have done psychological tests on civilians and we KNOW that they have lied about such tests but you still jump to a 70% chance that it was aliens even though we have exactly zero cases confirmed where that is the answer. No matter how low I try to reasonably estimate other options, aliens still ends up being the least likely option.

Quote:and considering what the possibilities are with the known universe, then the possibility of it being alien life is very real.

Based on what we understand about how life formed here I accept that the odds of life elsewhere in the universe is pretty damn close to 100%. Given the time required to evolve intelligence I'd have to lower that figure for the odds of intelligent life but I'd personally still put it above 60%, maybe even above 70%, and I could probably be persuaded to go higher.

Based on the complete lack of verifiable claims of aliens visiting earth, and what we currently understand about space travel and the distance between planets (let alone habitable planets), I think your odds that .01% of UFO incidents being actual alien visitations is much too high. I'd put it at least 1000 times lower.
Possible? sure.
Probable? No.
Best possible answer?

Atheism: it's not just for communists any more!
America July 4 1776 - November 8 2016 RIP

(28-11-2014 09:09 AM)Free Wrote: If I had to place a probability scale on whether or not 12 experienced eyewitnesses- who all described the exact same thing as being a metallic disc shaped object hovering 1600 feet above a hanger which accelerated through the clouds into space- it would be 90%.

To me, it's not a question of it not being a vehicle of some sort. According to 12 witnesses, it most definitely was. So that issue is really a 90% non-issue. It does not mean it is conclusive, but damn near it and close enough to certainly be exceptionally credible.

The reason my overall assessment is 70% is because we do not know for certainty who was piloting the craft; man, or non human.

Frankly, you baffle me. How you can go from .01% to 70% based only on witness testimony about what people think they saw only leads me to believe that you have incredibly low standards of evidence and/or are very gullible.

What baffles me is that you have failed to understand that the .01% and 70% are mutually exclusive and completely unrelated.

The .01 is a category reflecting the % of UFO reports that are probably alien.
The 70% plausible position reflects one of those .01 reports.

In other words, the O'Hare UFO incident is among the .01 category, and I consider this particular case as being 70% plausible.

Sorry you didn't get that.

Quote:You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Judging by your example above, you want to instruct me about reasoning?

For me, in the end, people see all sorts of things that they cannot readily explain. Happens to me occasionally, I have to do a double take at an attempt to reconcile what I saw with what I know. I spend a lot of time on the water and underwater, visibility is limited, weather changes quickly, and shapes come in and out of my visual sphere, but to jump at the conclusion that whatever I or those with me saw was anything but a boat or fish is not rational.

So the question becomes what are the chances that what was seen at O’Hare that day was an extraterrestrial craft and what are the chances that it was anything other than an extraterrestrial craft?

Since there is zero confirmed extraterrestrial craft evidence the only logical thing to say is that it was something else, the “what” will remain open.

Edit: On page 39 - 3:58.59 = “Somebody reported a UFO or a flying disc above Charley concourse, seriously.” So the controller was only passing the info along as I said before.

“I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man’s reasoning powers are not above the monkey’s.”~Mark Twain
“Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.”~ Ambrose Bierce

For me, in the end, people see all sorts of things that they cannot readily explain. Happens to me occasionally, I have to do a double take at an attempt to reconcile what I saw with what I know. I spend a lot of time on the water and underwater, visibility is limited, weather changes quickly, and shapes come in and out of my visual sphere, but to jump at the conclusion that whatever I or those with me saw was anything but a boat or fish is not rational.

So the question becomes what are the chances that what was seen at O’Hare that day was an extraterrestrial craft and what are the chances that it was anything other than an extraterrestrial craft?

Since there is zero confirmed extraterrestrial craft evidence the only logical thing to say is that it was something else, the “what” will remain open.

Edit: On page 39 - 3:58.59 = “Somebody reported a UFO or a flying disc above Charley concourse, seriously.” So the controller was only passing the info along as I said before.

Now that is an honest assessment of that report and I can respect it.

If you get a chance to get down to pages 53 and 54, you will see the conclusion and final evaluation report.

In regards to the hole in the clouds (HIC) that was seen immediately after the object bolted into orbit, the report had this to say:

Quote:We postulate the the instantaneous nature of the HIC formation, the circular shape, and its sharp edges all point to direct emissions of, for example, electromagnetic radiation from the oblate spheroid as the proximate cause of the HIC. We cannot identify the object or phenomenon lying inside the oblate spheroid surface, but two conclusions seem inescapable:

1) The object or phenomenon observed would have to have been something objectively and externally real to create the HIC effect and;

2) The HIC phenomenon associated with this object cannot be explained by either conventional weather phenomena or conventional aerospace craft, whether acknowledged or unacknowledged.

Found the following images on the web for comparison and I remain skeptical of anything extra-terrestrial having caused the unexplained event.

“I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man’s reasoning powers are not above the monkey’s.”~Mark Twain
“Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.”~ Ambrose Bierce